To Set Things Right
by rabidsamfan
Summary: A visitor to Baker Street is after more than conversation. From the Watson's Woes challenge: revenge.


**1882**

"Tell them I'm busy, Mrs. Hudson," I hissed when she came into our sitting room two minutes after the bell downstairs had rung. "This experiment is a matter of life and death!"

Mrs. Hudson tutted at the admonition. "Not every visitor to this address is for you, Mr. Holmes. The boy says he's come to see the Doctor."

"A boy?" Watson appeared over the back of the sofa, his hair wildly askew from the pillow. From the rate of his blinking I calculated that he had not made it through two chapters of his current foray into the unenlightening world of yellowback novels before succumbing to weariness. I tapped the deal table before me with frustration. The man needed his sleep!

He'd been of invaluable assistance to me in my current case, poring through a murdered man's documents for three days and then joining me in a vigorous pursuit of the murderer which had led through six counties and over a number of rooftops. I had only left to prove that the substance we'd found in the suspect's pockets corresponded with the material which had been at the site of the murder and we'd have proof solid enough to convince even a jury of blockheads that my solution was the correct one. But while I thrive on exhaustion, the same can not be said of Watson. As soon as the investigation had become a purely chemical one, I'd told him I could take the matter on myself, but he'd insisted on staying to see the denoument. A mistake, clearly. If he'd been up in his bed even Mrs. Hudson would have hesitated to bother him.

But as things stood he told her to go and fetch the visitor and then got to his feet, stumbling over to the table to pour some water from the pitcher into a glass. "I wonder who it can be," he muttered.

"Probably a messenger from one of your many conquests," I grumbled. The first year I had known him, ill health had made Watson a veritable hermit, but as his strength returned and with it his natural _joie de vivre_, he had begun to turn the head of every young lady we passed on the street (and a good half of their mothers' heads as well.)

Watson turned an amused eye upon me. "A messenger would have just sent up a message," he pointed out sleepily.

Before I could summon a retort the boy had reached the room. He was a sturdy, square built child of no more than thirteen, with a thick shock of brown hair and bright hazel eyes. His clothes were plain, but well made, and the hat he carried in his hands was new and much too large for his age and station. When he spoke it was clear that he'd been raised near Aberdeen, and sent to an English public school for at least the past two years.

"John Watson?" he asked, dismissing me with a glance and turning his attention entirely upon my friend. He was thrumming with tension, and so pale I found myself utterly distracted from my chemicals. "John Henry Watson?"

"Yes, that's right," said Watson. "Come, take a chair. You look as if you should sit down."

The boy shook his head. "No. No I just came to... that is..." He swallowed convulsively and then pulled out the pistol that had been concealed within the hat and aimed it at Watson. "This is for ruining my mother!" he cried and pulled the trigger.

The gun -- an ancient flintlock -- promptly exploded in his hand, sending a cloud of black powder smoke through the room and drawing cries of dismay from all three of us. I knocked over half my glassware as I scrambled from the table to intercept the boy before he could run, but there was no need. He was frozen in place, staring at a hand covered in burns, and at my touch on the shoulder he went down in a faint.

Watson was not in much better state. The bullet had passed through the tumbler he was holding, sending splinters of glass in every direction, several of which had caught the flesh of his hand and two of which had struck him in the face. I made certain that when I took his arm I got a firm grip. "Come and sit down."

"The boy..." Watson protested. "He's hurt."

"Considering that he just did his best to murder you, I can't say that I'm sorry."

"Bring him over to the sofa. And I'll need the water pitcher. Oh, and find my medical bag, will you? I think it's under Tuesday's papers." Watson allowed me to steer him over to the canebacked chair near the sofa and then waited, plucking bits of glass out of himself and tossing them into the fire while I collected the boy and the gun and reassured Mrs. Hudson that for once the loud noise which had disturbed her cookery was not a consequence of my experiments. I considered asking her to send for a policeman, but given that any scandal from the matter would redound upon Watson I chose discretion instead.

I did, however, locate my handcuffs and secure the boy's uninjured wrist to the arm of the sofa while Watson was still rummaging through his medical supplies.

"That's going to be awfully uncomfortable for him," Watson observed, and then used a word he'd learned in India (and refused to translate later) when the blood from his injuries made his grip slip on the vial he'd selected.

"Let me do that," I said impatiently.

"I thought you needed to see to your chemicals," Watson said. "Matter of life and death, remember? And you're burning something over there."

He was right. I swore and went to salvage what evidence I could and ensure that no further explosions would disturb our landlady's peace, and by the time I could return to the sofa the boy was awake, watching with pain and distrust as Watson made a clumsy job of trying to clean around his burns. I took over the task, ordering Watson to sit back and take care of himself first.

"What's your name?" I asked the boy, thinking to distract him from the pain.

"Tommy... Thomas," he answered after a moment, bright pink climbing his cheeks. "Thomas Leeson."

I glanced over to Watson and saw him pale. His eyes grew abstracted, as if he were doing sums. This was not good, but I might still salvage the situation.

"And Tommy, may I call you Tommy?" I went on whether the boy nodded assent or no, "Tommy, just why do you think that this particular John Henry Watson is the man who is responsible for the ruination of your mother? John and Henry are the two most common names in England, and there must be several men of that name here in London alone."

Clearly that had never occurred to the child. "Really?" he said. "Oh, no!" He turned to Watson, his eyes desperate. "I'm sorry!"

"You did more harm to yourself than to me," Watson said gruffly. "Lie still and let Holmes finish."

"I'll try, sir. But it hurts."

"Morphine," Watson suggested. "You'll have to prepare it, Holmes."

"In a moment." I didn't want the boy too drugged to speak before I'd got a few more important details out of him. But I gentled my touch a bit more. "You came to London to avenge your mother," I said. "Did she die recently?"

"No, sir. She died when I was born. But Grandfather...ouch... Grandfather always said that it was never her fault." Young Leeson's eyes fell. "Grandfather died last month. I have to live with my uncle now." By the unhappy curve of his mouth, his uncle wanted nothing to do with the child of his sister's indiscretion. "He blames my father too."

"And you thought to set things right." Watson rubbed at his face. "What was your mother's name?"

"Jenny. Jenny Leeson. From Inverurie. Were you ever there?"

Watson hesitated a moment, but his eyes were as clear as the sky when he brought down his hand to meet the boy's gaze. "No. No, I never went to Inverurie," he sighed.

I knew that Watson was not answering the question the boy had truly wanted answering, but Tommy Leeson was in too much pain, and too young, to recognize the evasion. I thought the opportunity a good one to bring out the morphine.

Once the boy was sleeping, I set about rebandaging Watson's fingers. "And did Jenny Leeson ever go to Aberdeen?" I asked, for I'd heard the touch of that town's vowels in Watson's speech upon occasion.

"Yes," he answered shortly. "She was trying -- and failing -- to make a living as a seamstress. And I was seventeen, working for my cousin for the summer and being paid a salary for the first time in my life." He made sure the boy was soundly unconscious before he added. "I could be his father, but I'm not the only one."

"Then how on earth did her father get _your_ name, if you were only one of dozens?" I asked.

"Not dozens, Holmes," Watson protested. "A handful perhaps." He reddened. "She was very kind, but she was frightened too. She didn't want to go home. I only paid her so that she could keep a roof over her head."

"And her father?"

"He must have read my letters."

I pinched my nose, unwilling to believe that Watson had been so indiscreet even as a callow youth. "You wrote her letters? Incriminating letters?"

"Hardly!" he exclaimed. "I never mentioned anything... anything about that summer. I just told her about University, and my studies and all." I'd never seen him quite so pink. "But when she didn't answer I thought maybe she didn't want to hear from me after all and I stopped writing. Holmes, what am I going to do?"

I thought furiously. "What was she like?"

"She was perhaps two years older than I was, and very pretty. Kind, as I said, but skittish too. She'd never go into a pub because she didn't like the smell."

"And to look at? Her hair and eyes?"

"Her hair was dark brown with a bit of red. Her eyes," he smiled suddenly, his blue eyes alight. "They were grey, like yours. I told her once that they made me think of the sea."

I smiled too, remembering the brown and green mix in our unwanted guest's eyes. "Then you're absolved of paternity at least."

"But not responsibility," Watson said. "It's not like I can send Tommy Leeson out to confront every other John Henry Watson he finds. One of these days he might succeed, and if he does they'll hang him, no matter what his reason."

"I'm not sure he values his own neck enough to care." I had seen enough among my Irregulars to know an unwanted child when he was sleeping on my sofa. "And I doubt his uncle would intervene."

"Then I'll have to set things right." Watson got up and went to his writing desk. "I've got some friends still in the Army. I think I can get him a place."

"If he wants one," I said.

"That or aboard a ship as a cabin boy," he muttered, trying to position the pen around the bandages.

I left him to it and went back to my chemicals.

**1902**

"Tell them I'm busy, Mrs. Hudson," I cried in my most masterful way as our landlady came in to the sitting room. "Tell them I'm dead, if necessary. I cannot leave this experiment, not if the King himself were standing in our foyer!"

Mrs. Hudson sniffed, completely unimpressed. "Not every visitor to this address is for you, Mr. Holmes. And this one is definitely here to see the Doctor."

"To see me?" Watson emerged from his newspaper, unaware that he'd smudged his nose with the ink. "A patient?"

"Not this time, sir." The tall soldier who had come up the stairs behind Mrs. Hudson still had faint scars upon his hand, but Thomas Leeson, Sergeant, was in the bloom of health. "We got into Portsmouth yesterday, and I came up to bring you a box of those spices you wanted," he added, depositing a box upon the table before accepting a hearty handshake from his mentor.

He stood on our hearthrug, telling tales of India, for half the night, while I finished up my work, and watched from the old deal table. They looked alike, those two, for all that there were no real ties of blood between them. Sturdy, and straight, and honorable.

﻿


End file.
